However, speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke yesterday, Minister Donohoe insisted that it’s not our money and he has no intention of spending it.

But with the appeal not due to be heard until the autumn at the earliest, the Government is likely to come under significant pressure from Opposition parties to change its tune.

No - Paschal Donohoe, Finance Minister

WE completely disagree with the assessment the European Commission has made in relation to our relationship with Apple, but we’re in the European Union, we’re staying in the European Union and we play by the rules of the European Union.

So we have said that it is important that an amount of money be collected while we are contesting the ruling of the Commission in court. But I wanted to collect it in such a way that didn’t create a potential risk for the Irish taxpayer in the future.

In the current world that we’re in of very low interest rates and low returns on investments, managing an amount of money like €13bn, without creating a loss, is quite a job to do.

So we have decided to set up an escrow account which is like a holding version of a bank account. We have agreed who will run it, we have agreed how the fund will be administered and now we have reached an agreement with Apple in relation to the terms of that account.

We have to win this appeal and I am putting all the right resources behind us winning it.

The reason for that is that any potential gain that might be made here would be rapidly offset by the consequences to our tax policy because it would mean that outside bodies believe that we cut deals for companies — and we do not.

There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Ireland on this.

If in any circumstance we were to lose this appeal, what would immediately happen is that every other country in the European Union, and potentially outside of the European Union, would say they’re owed a share of this money.

And that is why, while we’re collecting this money, I’m not spending it.

It’s not our money and if we were to spend it, the risk that it would create in the future for us if we were to lose the appeal would be truly gigantic.

In any scenario that I can see, there’s no pot of gold here.

The European Commission have said in the event of them winning this ruling, and us losing, other jurisdictions would then be invited to lodge a claim for a share of this fund.

The logic would be that other jurisdictions were denied a share of it.

So we would then find ourselves in a situation where number one, the credibility of how we manage our corporate tax policy would be facing some very serious questions that are unfounded because we’ve managed our tax policy impartially and fairly at all points.

And number two, pretty much every country that has any form of business relationship or sells Apple devices would then say they want a share of that money and maybe even more.

Yes - Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD

THE political establishment’s deal with Apple amounted to economic treason, and now even though they’ve been ordered to repay the money, we’re going to spend millions of euro on legal fees, just to say no to billions in cash.

This money could help solve the housing emergency, the problems in our health service, and a litany of other huge social problems — it could go a long way toward solving the many crises facing people.

It beggars belief that this government has more loyalty to tax-dogging corporations than it has to the citizens of this country.

The decision to appeal the ruling is just patent nonsense covering up the fact that the Government actively facilitated tax avoidance through advanced tax rulings that benefited a small cohort of big multinational corporations.

The only thing that’s true is that it wasn’t just Apple. The tax policy was driven by a desire to facilitate negligible tax being paid by a tiny cohort of large corporations.

I’m no great fan of much of what the EU does. But in this case they’re absolutely right to say that extremely profitable corporations were getting an unfair advantage.

The profits being made by these corporations are so astronomical and off the charts, and the taxes that are being paid are so negligible, that the idea they would leave if they were made to pay a bigger contribution in tax is nonsense.

They’re not going to leave billions of euro in profits behind, because even our nominal rates are so far below what’s paid in the rest of Europe.

To me the evidence is clear that the Irish government did facilitate this and gave tax advantages to certain corporations who have a lot of influence over it.

Those advantages aren’t given to ordinary small- and medium-sized businesses.

I think people are stunned, that a government that would have inflicted so much austerity over the last decade, based on the idea we had no money, would then in the same breath refuse €13bn.
I believe the Government should stop wasting more public money on defending the indefensible.

If it did that, it would be far more likely that money would flow back to this country as, without its support, Apple’s case would lose credibility.

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